Thank you . . .

Community thank letters

Posted: Friday, July 07, 2000

By THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

...for local care

On June 11, during the course of repairing my roof, I fell and landed on my driveway located two stories below. I would like to publicly thank the responding Juneau Fire Rescue crew who arrived within three minutes after my wife made the 911 call and delivered me to Bartlett Regional Hospital emergency room within 15 minutes. My X-rays indicated what was quite obvious by the time I reached the hospital, that I had severely injured my hip and would require an operation. I am grateful to the professional EMT staff who went out of their way to ensure that I was not only medically safe while in transit, but I was transported without the jarring that would have aggravated the type of injury I had.

Although it was a Sunday morning I was fortunate that Dr. Allen Gross, a bone specialist, was available to do an immediate surgery. It is interesting to note that Allen is a local boy who returned to his hometown to practice medicine, bringing a needed specialty to our remote and small community.

In closing I would like to note that I was one of those who was opposed to extending the 1 percent sales tax to expand and improve our regional hospital. I now support this initiative wholeheartedly for obvious reasons. Providing a medical facility worthy enough to encourage other Juneau raised young physicians like Allan, to practice here, is desperately needed to bring in needed medical specialties to our community. I was lucky I didn't have to go to Seattle to see a ``specialist.'' We had one right here.

In addition to the fine folks I noted above, I would like to publicly thank all of my friends, neighbors and my employer (the 17th Coast Guard District) who have all reached out to my family and I with offers of assistance. God bless all of you. Juneau has not lost its ability to provide that special feeling associated with being a small, close-knit community.

James Helfinstine

...for Pelican event

The Pelican Boardwalk Boogie Music Festival wants to extend a huge thanks to:

The residents of Pelican; the Alaska State Council on the Arts for its generous donation; All the mega-talented musicians; the City of Pelican, including Cathy Wasserman, Dave Duffy and Allen Stewart; Ellen Ferguson for running the raffle and everyone who donated to the raffle; Mick and Vicki Shocki at the Pelican Brown Bar; Karen and Victo Stepenanko at the Lisianski Inlet Cafe; Tammy and Ingemar Lundahl, Bob and Nancy Eyeres, Patti Phillips and others for your help as the Impromptu Community Hall Committee; Lindy Dickson for designing the tickets, singing in the coffee house, helping with housing and for just being you; Capital Copy, especially Beth and Tom for your help and patience with us; Claire Fordyce and Joyce Levine for help loading sound equipment and Joyce for selling raffle tickets; Sarah Ely for selling raffle tickets and lugging things; Katie Corbin for taking great photos; Gail Corbin for having Katie; Jeff Brown for use of his button machine; Gilles a Pap for being French; Melissa Conderman for taking videos (of Riley who was blindfolded???!!!); Bob Banghart for advice; Riley Woodford for you know what; Albert McDonnell for sound help; Susan Price and Jane Pascoe for help loading boats; Nicole Lantz for amazing poster art; Art Sutch Photography for his donation to the Pelican History Museum; Valerie for filling in for Jim and calling the square dances; Heather Haugland for help with publicity; Everyone at Pelican Seafoods, including Carol Seymore for help taking bunkhouse reservations; Dick Walker for help with the gym; Paula with Northern Lights Design for the web page: Boardwalkbookie.com; For housing help we thank: Vicki and Rosco Max, Esther Moy and her three cats and Carl Carlson (and Sven Svenson, Ole Oleson and Johann Johannson too); The crew at Roses Bar; Dirty song contest judges: Dave Duffy, Kathy Wasserman, Ude Paddock, Glen Woods, and Terry Schomer; Andy Ferguson for you know what winkwinknudgenudge; KTOO and Raven Radio for your PSAs; Jackie, Audra, Meliza and Cris for your help schlepping stuff; and everyone else who we forgot to mention but really appreciate!

...for bike rodeo

Thank you to the many people who made the June 10 Bike Rodeo a great success. Over 125 youth attended this bicycle safety event. Stations at the event included: rules of the road, equipment checkup, safety course and the proper fit for a bike helmet. The event also had a first-ever feature: an on-road ride under escort of a mounted police officer. This ``real life'' experience added greatly to the event. Thanks to Sergeants Tom Wehnes and Ben Coronell for their leadership and Officers Paul Comolli, Scott Erickson, Paul Hatch, Jim Quinto, Kris Sell and Jason VanSickle of the Juneau Police Department for their active participation. Special thanks to those who helped plan and made the event possible: John Andersen, Judy Murphy and Dennis Harris fro the Juneau Freewheelers; Lane Stumme of Southeast Alaska Area Council, Boy Scouts of America and Kathy Buss of Tongass Girl Scouts; Sharron Lobaugh, Martha Moore, Myiia Whistler, Bob Laurie, Tim Lobaugh and Doreen Risley from the Juneau SAFE KIDS Coalition; Eric Lindegard of ABG Bus Company; Mike Scott from CBJ Streets Department; Dan Schwab for the chalker and chalk; and Big Kmart for their parking lot. Donations were received from Northern Sales, Costco, Pizza Hut, Big Kmart; McDonalds; KTOO; KINY; Coca Cola for the banner; Carr's for the donation of bicycles for a raffle; and Mountain Sports for conditioning those bikes.